Frozen in Memory
by Water-Soter
Summary: McGee wasn't speaking to him. Tony couldn't muster the energy to care. Gen


**Title: **Frozen in Memory

**Author: **Water-Soter

**Prompt: **Remember the snow storms in DC this past winter? What happened to team Gibbs during that time? Can be gen or slash (Tony/Gibbs). Team fic, humor or angst - whatever strikes your fancy. Snowball fight in the Yard with the whole team? Romantic snuggling in front of the fireplace while being snowed in? Stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere out on a case, worried they'd freeze to death?

**Written For: **sinfulslasher

**Summary: **McGee wasn't speaking to him. Tony couldn't muster the energy to care.

**Main Characters: **Tony DiNozzo and Tim McGee

**Genre: **Drama

**Series: **One-Shot

**Author's Notes: **This was written for the NCIS ficathon. I hope you like it. This is probably the hardest thing I've ever written. So please tell me what you think. Thanks so Sci-Fi Lemon for the beta and hand holding, you so rock! Also posted at my LJ.

**Feedback: **Please tell me what you think. The good, the bad and the ugly. :-p

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, sadly I just love torturing them.

**Word Count: **1004

**Warnings: **Look below

*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

The tiny crystals fell out of the sky like miniature feathers; bright, white and flowing with the wind in playful swirls. They landed without sound, without impact. They merely brushed against the streets, the lights, the windowsills, the surfaces of parked cars. Stacked up, they lit the ground better than any street lamp could.

Tony's eyes fidgeted, watching as crystal flakes drifted like a wave. Temped to open the window and let a few melt in the cavern of his mouth except . . . except that it wasn't a good idea.

McGee would have agreed if he was speaking to him. He wasn't; hadn't for the last hour. Tony couldn't muster up the energy to care. Hours had passed, time moving at both the speed of light and the slow crawl of a snail.

On his right, McGeek was a silent specter, his face plastered on a window too fogged up to show his face. Against the cool glass, McGee's expression lay hidden. But Tony could imagine it.

It was his greatest weapon, his imagination. It got him in more trouble than any of his elaborate pranks and solved just as many cases. It kept the boredom at bay. It annoyed McGee to the point of complete silence. Inside their little oasis, the silence stretched and stretched into unbearable stillness.

Outside shadows crept into every nock and cranny, between alleyways, behind trashcans and inside every crack in the decrement building. Outside the buildings loomed and Tony was reminded of those black and white movies where the stranger in the dark crept up from behind and slid the throat of the heroes.

"You know, McGeek," he said, startled by the echoing quality of his voice in the small space. He cleared his throat, focused on the brightness surrounding them like a halo instead of the deep darkness and what it hid. "This reminds me of another stakeout I was in back in Philly."

McGee didn't so much as twitch, but in his mind's eye Tony saw his blue eyes wide open and staring at him through the fogged up glass.

"There was this guy, Franco, an Italian with a mean right hook and a matchstick temper but slick as a whistle." His voice became a lowly rough whisper. A hint of the Philly accent creeping in the more he talked.

"Rich, oh, he was rich and I'm not talking about Kennedy rich, he was right up there with Donald Trump and Bill Gates."

Tony's eyes closed of their own accord, two weights pulling down on his eyelids. He turned and looked back toward the one building across and half a block in front of them. The windows were still plunged in inky black, lifeless like the rest of the street, like the rest of the buildings surrounding them. Crumbling and long abandoned.

"It meant he had the best attorneys money could buy." He reached for the edges of his coat, fumbled three times before he was able to grip the cloth and wrap it more firmly around his body.

"Untouchable even to guys like Mike Abrams, who had ten years under his belt in homicide before putting in an extra seven in narcotics. Or Tommy Costello, five-foot-six, balding and a total ass, but he would have given even Gibbs the heebie geebies."

Tony shifted on his seat, his body moving far less than he would have expected. "And Franco was a slippery eel that no one could pin down."

A thin sheen of ice formed on the glass. Tony stared at it, his fingers twitching in an effort to reach up and doodle on the shiny surface. It was a reminiscent of those long drives as a child forced to sit still and obedient for hours as they raced to whatever social event they had that day.

His hands didn't move.

"So the powers that be decided that since even their most experienced detectives couldn't pin him down, a freshly transferred detective and a newly minted greenhorn would."

A harsh burst of breath escaped his lips. Tony watched mesmerized as swirls of mist rose and faded a second later.

"It was the middle of winter." More and more flakes began falling, whitening out the sky that had become a mosaic of purples, grays and fluorescent reds. "And it'd been snowing for days."

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony thought he saw McGee move, tilt his head sideways in a facsimile of paying attention while pretending otherwise. Tony's lips twitched upward, and he let himself sink deeper into the memory.

"We got a Chevy, thirty bucks and a pair of binoculars with a broken lens." Fatigue weighed heavily on him, his body felt like lead. There was something nagging at the edge of his senses, a vague twinge that slipped through his fingers like water.

"The kid –" Tony paused, his brow furrowing. "The guy –"

He sighed and a cloud of mist emerged. "The rookie – he was excited about his first stakeout." Tony snorted, his eyes closing of their own accord. He barely noticed. "Kept yammering about it."

The dripping sound started to fade. Tony sank into the seat. A warmth settling deep in his bones. "Hours we spent there. Just waiting."

A yawn made his jaw crack. Next to him a pop on glass had Tony cracking an eyelid. Everything was murky around the edges but McGee's slumped form was clear.

"We couldn't turn on the car." His voice became soft and raspy.

"Would've given us away."

The snow, a winter wonderland, white as far as the eye could see. Then – now. "Kid stopped talkin'"

Like Santa's Workshop. Candy canes, gingerbread houses. "Car wouldn't start." The murmur was barely audible.

"Got tired."

"Slept." Tony's voice faded into nothing.

Outside, the flakes kept falling. Outside, the black of their car faded underneath a blanket of white. Outside in the barren streets, flashes of red and blue broke through the monotone of color. Outside sirens wailed to the beat of the falling snow.

*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

**End Notes:** Character death. Sorry guys, I couldn't write anything else for this prompt. Hope you guys enjoyed it!


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